


Breathe Sideways

by ganymead



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Empathy, M/M, and how it's detrimental to various careers, brief mentions of sexual abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-15
Updated: 2012-10-15
Packaged: 2017-11-16 08:57:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ganymead/pseuds/ganymead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The proof of their lives lie in a little death to the tune of a blue dawn.</p><p>[An AU in which empathy exists, and it <i>sucks</i>.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breathe Sideways

**Author's Note:**

> TRIUMPHANT BELLOW _it's finally done ah_ the taste of success is sweetest when it's been dancing just out of reach for about three weeks. Now excuse me for I am going to wash myself of this dumb thing by... writing other dumb things. Okay then.

  
_Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly._  
-Neil Gaiman, "Sandman Vol. 6: Fables and Reflections"

* * *

John takes him by the hand and says, "Ah, Mr. Holmes."

Sherlock lets his hand be taken and says, "Sherlock, please."

The contact is short and stretches out for forever and Sherlock can taste the hint of hope on his tongue.

* * *

That night, John shoots a man for him. The resulting recoil should be overwhelming, it should _hurt (dead? dying! bleeding!)_ , but all it does is make that small hint of flavour blossom into life around him. It's gold and grey and brown and Sherlock hasn't felt anything so beautiful in a long time.

It isn't until later, when they're eating Chinese takeout on the sofa with their shoulders touching slightly, that he realises who the gold and grey and brown belongs to.

(It isn't until later, when he's untying the knots around John's hands and glancing furtively at the crossbow that nearly impaled him, that he realises how much he stands to lose).

* * *

The first time John is around to witness it happening, he doesn't even realise it. He just stands outside Sherlock's door and calls his name, over and over again because there are people relentlessly knocking on the doors and the windows and he doesn't know what to do with them.

He even tries the door, just once. It isn't locked, but there's a huge pile of clothes bunched up against the door so that he can't get it open without throwing his whole body against it, and that feels like cheating.

John slips a note through the door - _("people clawing at windows, somewhat life-threatening, but I'll manage")_ \- and leaves him be. When he gets back to the lounge, Lestrade is standing in the middle of the room.

"Mrs. Hudson let me in," he says in answer to John's incredulous stare. "Sherlock wasn't answering his phone."

John shakes his head. "He's shut himself in his room and won't talk to me. You're welcome to try, if you like, but you'd be a better man than I if you can get anything out of him."

A few seconds later and something in Lestrade's face changes, a dawning understanding that John doesn't share at all. "I'll come back later then, shall I?" he says, then turns to leave.

John's cry of "Wait, no, what?" follows him out the door.

* * *

The next time it happens, there is no pile of clothes against the door. Sherlock just stops mid-speech, leaps away from the kitchen table, and dashes into his room without a word.

John, who'd been holding a knife for Sherlock, follows him automatically. He pushes the door open without a thought and takes maybe two steps before Sherlock bears down on him and shoves John harshly by his shoulder _(left shoulder old injury John can feel it twinge in hurt)_.

"Get out! Get out _now!_ "

"Sherlock, I-"

_"Leave!"_

Sherlock slams the door shut behind him.

John almost drops the bloody knife in his hands. He manages to catch it just in time, but it comes at the added price of getting his own fingerprints all over the blade, not to mention accidentally slicing his finger and adding a little of his own blood to the mix.

Sherlock yells at him for it later, but not until three in the morning when John's hands are shaking and it takes him too long to realise that the blood under his fingernails isn't from holding a man's organs in with his own hands.

John doesn't do anything but watch his hands critically, willing them to stop shaking. It takes a few, long minutes, and somewhere in that time, Sherlock's yelling cuts off abruptly.

He doesn't hear anything else. Eventually, he rolls over and tries to go back to sleep.

He manages it, but not for another three hours.

* * *

Every few weeks or so, Sherlock locks himself in his room for a day and doesn't come out for anything.

John doesn't even notice at first, so used to Sherlock sprinting off at odd hours and coming out only at night and, yes, not speaking for days.

It's a large batch of suspicious moulds spreading across the kitchen table that really sparks things off. Of course, it isn't until he's halfway through preparing dinner that he even notices the lot of it.

He manages not to shriek, but still jumps and knocks one of the plates off the table. He takes a moment to collect himself, then knocks sharply on Sherlock's door. When he doesn't answer, John opens it himself.

Sherlock is under the blankets, curled in a foetal position with his back to John. He doesn't say anything, and John doesn't know whether he's awake or not.

John closes the door and moves the moulds to one corner of the table, then starts dinner again.

* * *

Over the course of the months, John begins to note down how often Sherlock retreats. His results start to look something like this:

They don't tell him anything conclusive, but he feels better when he writes them down anyway.

* * *

A few weeks later and the piece of paper is no longer in his pocket.

It's quietly burning away on a plate on the kitchen table.

* * *

Three days into a case, and Sherlock hasn't slept at all. His hands shake as much as John's used to and his eyes dart back and forward, switching quickly between focussing on two different things and therefore focussing on nothing at all.

Lestrade eyes him warily, and sends more than one pointed glance in John's direction, but Sherlock ignores him. Ignores the yellow tape thrown around haphazardly, ignores the people milling around in blue scrubs, ignores John threatening to spill over the edges.

Two dead girls lie on the ground in front of them. The entirety of their flesh, from their forehead down to each individual toe, has been scored with dead straight slashes.

John's face twists into a grimace and he looks away briefly. Sherlock's face does nothing but tug downwards into a scowl. He takes a pen out of his pocket and lifts up what little is left of the skirt one of the girls wore. He drops it again after a brief inspection, and his scowl deepens.

"Signs of sexual abuse, very meticulously removed by your brilliant forensics department, Lestrade. Too late!"

This isn't what John was expecting him to say, Sherlock can tell the moment the words have left his mouth. John starts to say something, something inane, but Sherlock closes him out completely.

And suddenly, it's worse than that; no longer inane mumbles but something his attention keeps snapping back to. John's frustration is no longer about Sherlock's reaction, it's about the fact they've worked so hard and run so far and it's so distracting that he starts to taste tea rose orange.

_Oh, shit._

The orange starts to mix and bloom into a strange, off chiffon yellow. It's been too much over too long and if he's lucky he has maybe two minutes to stay standing.

Sherlock resists the temptation to curl in on himself, to hold his head in his hands and pull at his hair. He resists because John is _standing right there_ and he can't let him know that all the pieces of everyone he resolutely shuts out have started bleeding through.

He stands, his back to John, and flicks out his phone. His fingers fly over the screen, first to Molly ( _Required: Note of any feet with small cuts underneath the toes)_ , then, reluctantly, to Mycroft _(Old train station warehouse. Be quick)_.

Eventually, he runs out of distractions, and turns to John.

John is staring at the girls with a mix of grief and longing _(tinged with streaks of hope and apprehension, all blacked out by a surge of regret so strong that it leaves Sherlock reeling)_ , then he's staring at Sherlock and that surge of emotions barrels straight for him.

"Sherlo-"

Sherlock looks away and manages to tip forward enough to throw up on the ground instead of his clothes. He doesn't feel John's hands on his shoulders, on his cheeks, on his forehead.

He just crumples forward and stops.

* * *

When Sherlock wakes the next morning, lying twisted in the sheets of his own bed, he doesn't manage to tug them all off before running to the bathroom. He trips over them in the hallway and throws up against the wall.

John comes down a minute later, shirtless with his trousers undone, evidently having been woken by the noise of Sherlock crashing around. He hauls Sherlock up by the armpits and all but carries him the rest of the way to the bathroom.

Sherlock shakes and throws up nothing but bile and he swears and yells until his throat scratches and goes hoarse and John leaves. He comes back a moment later with a jug of water and a glass and a change of clothes and lets Sherlock punch the walls until his fists start to bleed.

He doesn't say anything, just takes Sherlock's hands and cleans them meticulously.

When he's done, Sherlock wants to throw himself into the wall just so John will stay a little longer and touch his skin a little more.

He doesn't.

John leaves.

* * *

A few hours later Sherlock comes out again, heads straight for the couch, and flops himself down on it. He curls himself into as much of a ball as he can manage without falling off, his back to John, and doesn't say anything at all.

John looks surprised, but he doesn't say anything about it. Not that he really has to; Sherlock can feel him from the other side of the room, and he starts to regret coming out at all.

Except then John leaves, and the hole his absence makes in the room throws everything into a negative perspective. He clenches his eyes shut and ignores the grey spots that dance over his eyes.

He's jolted back into perspective by the hand that runs through his hair, shortly followed by the soft thunk of a mug being set on the coffee table. Sherlock doesn't turn, doesn't react at all, nothing beyond relaxing as reality shifts back into place.

"Listen, Sherlock, I'm going out and I..."

Sherlock doesn't want to tune out, not really, not again, but John's voice and John's hand and John so close to him makes it hard to concentrate on anything other than the possibility of sliding themselves together.

John says something more, lingers for a bit, then throws his jacket on and leaves.

The room is in negative once more.

* * *

Mycroft arrives while John is out. Sherlock first hears him at the bottom of the stairs, engaged in conversation with Mrs. Hudson. When he finally walks into 221B, he's carrying a plate of scones, which he sets on the kitchen table.

Sherlock ignores him for as long as possible. He manages quite well, until Mycroft starts speaking.

"You need to tell him."

Sherlock curls in closer to himself. It's as much of a response as Mycroft needs, but not the one he wants.

His voice is firm, penetrative, and annoying. "You really must have slipped if you need telling that yesterday was absolutely terrible. You're lucky that he didn't ask any questions, because I would have told him then and there."

Sherlock straightens himself out, rolls over, and glares at Mycroft. "He doesn't-" he coughs, throat still sore and voice quiet. "He doesn't need to know."

Mycroft gives him a look that manages to be both condescending and pitiful. "You can't keep dancing around the subject; you must have noticed how much he's picked up by now."

He thinks back to John's list, remembers setting fire to it with a laugh. "He has, but he's hardly perceptive enough to-"

"You don't know that!"

Sherlock freezes, surprised by his brother's sudden outburst. If the expression on Mycroft's face is anything to go by, he's just as surprised.

He swings his feet around to the ground and stands, somewhat shakily. "Take your misplaced brotherly guilt elsewhere, Mycroft, because I don't want it."

Mycroft slams the tip of his umbrella into the ground, giving the odd impression that it's his way of stamping his foot. "I don't care what you want anymore, Sherlock, this is getting ridiculous. One of these days, you are going to run yourself ragged, and Doctor Watson won't be around to help you."

Silence stretches between them. Sherlock scowls and Mycroft watches him closely. Eventually, Mycroft says, "Please consider your actions over the next few days very carefully," then turns to leave.

Seized by a sudden surge of anger and frustration, Sherlock picks up the untouched cup of coffee and hurls it in Mycroft's direction. It sails past Mycroft's head and shatters against the doorway, spraying china and cold coffee everywhere. Mycroft pauses, just for a second, but in that second his shoulders sag ever so slightly and every year of his age is so painfully etched into his back.

The moment passes, and Mycroft is gone.

"I don't need your guilt!" Sherlock yells after him.

Because sometimes, Mycroft's expectations scratch at Sherlock's skin and raise ugly white-red welts in their wake. They're expectations that force Sherlock to absorb every little thing that slides off Mycroft's skin, then demand him to function as normal.

He scowls and runs his fingers through his hair in frustration and stands by the window, watching Mycroft get into a car and leave, which is exactly how John finds him when he comes back.

"Sherlock, I could hear yelling and I just passed Mycroft in the hall, are you- oh, christ!"

China scrapes against china and cracks under John's shoes and the sound resonates in his ears and it grates. When John speaks again, his voice is low with barely restrained anger.

"Tell me that wasn't my mug."

"I thought you abhorred liars," Sherlock replies, with a lot less of his usual bite.

John's hand comes up to pinch the bridge of his nose, an action Sherlock has long since come to know as keeping himself in check. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Sherlock growls, long and low, then whirls on him. "If you hate it so much, why do you keep coming back?"

The anger begins to slip off John's face, replaced by a confused furrow of the eyebrows. "What are you talking about now? I don't-"

Sherlock takes him by the shoulders again and shoves him backwards. "You! You've had your foot halfway out the door since you got here, so why haven't you left yet?"

The anger returns in full force and John grabs Sherlock's wrist, pries it away from his shoulders. "You're delusional! Sure, you frustrate me with your experiments and your violent at three in the morning and your adamant refusal to buy milk, but you _know_ that this is the best thing that's happened to me. I'm hardly about to leave!"

Sherlock wrenches his wrist out of John's hand with a scowl. "It doesn't mean anything. The army doctor with PTSD and a pathetic, psychosomatic limp who still has nightmares. The only reason you don't leave is because you know no one else will take you in."

John's shocked into silence, then ends it with a laugh. "You know what, fuck you. Fuck you and whatever high horse you rode in on." He steps back and shakes his head. "I'm going out. I may be some time," he says in a deadpan.

The door swings shut behind him and makes Sherlock want to wrench it open and chase after John, grab him by the shoulders and drag him back inside.

He doesn't, because that would be mad.

He doesn't, because he doesn't want that gold-grey-brown to turn on him with disgust.

* * *

That was hardly what I intended when I said "consider your actions carefully." MH  
DELETE?  
>yes

Sherlock, stop childishly deleting my texts. MH  
DELETE?  
>yes

I will tell him myself. MH  
DELETE?  
>yes

Fuck off. SH  
[sent]

Eloquent. MH  
DELETE?  
>yes

Would you prefer "Please shove all the planets in the universe up your arse?" SH  
[sent]

I'd prefer it if you stopped dawdling and told the man, for christ sake. MH  
DELETE?  
>yes

He loves you. MH  
DELETE?  
>  
>  
>no

Stop texting me. SH  
[sent]

Didn't think you'd be one for watching science fiction. Or is that another of John's ideas? MH  
DELETE?  
>yes

* * *

John returns a few hours later. The smell he brings in is all icy cold, gained from two hours of wandering aimlessly around the streets of London and half an hour sitting in a park with nothing but his thoughts. No smell of alcohol hangs around him, no unfamiliar scent of women plastered against his skin.

Sherlock's curled back up on the couch, in the exact same position he'd been in when he last left. Not that he wants to notice, but he can't help but automatically focus on Sherlock whenever he's in the room.

John frowns in irritation, shakes his head free of Sherlock, and climbs the stairs to his room. He strips off completely and rolls under the covers, making a note to tidy his clothes in the morning. At the moment, he simply could not be arsed.

He's almost managed to slip off to sleep when the creak of the floorboard directly outside his door pulls him back into waking. It takes him a few seconds to realise that Sherlock is standing outside his door, and his lip twitches upwards ever so slightly, amused by the obvious request for permission to enter.

"You can come in, Sherlock," he says, and the door opens immediately. Sherlock shuffles in quietly and stands by the open door, blue robe draped over his shoulders. "I apologise for my behaviour this afternoon."

John frowns. "You couldn't wait until morning to apologise?"

Sherlock pauses, as though unsure of how to continue. "You might have been gone by morning."

"Oh," is all John says in reply.

After a few minutes where John isn't sure whether Sherlock is still there or not, Sherlock says, "Thank you for returning."

Then he leaves.

* * *

"Where do you go, when you..."

Sherlock looks at him sharply. "When I... what, exactly? Do remember to finish your sentences, John."

John throws his arms up in frustration and stomps out of the room.

* * *

The first snow of winter falls at precisely 4:13 in the morning. Sherlock watches it for all of about two minutes before climbing the steps to John's room. He skips the creaky floorboard and stands beside John's bed.

John himself is completely unmoving, but his expression is pinched and his shoulders drawn taut. Sherlock frowns, takes off his shirt and his trousers but leaves his pants on and slides under the blanket.

John jolts in his sleep but somehow manages to keep dreaming through it. Sherlock touches his shoulder tentatively with his own, and when he still doesn't wake, he presses their backs together completely.

The warmth from John's skin starts seeping through to his own. He makes a small, content noise and closes his eyes.

John wakes almost exactly two hours later to explosions and screams that echo in his head. He wakes to Sherlock's arm thrown haphazardly around his waist, to Sherlock's leg twisted between his own, to Sherlock's face pressed against his left shoulder.

John shakes and he smiles and he sleeps.

* * *

When John wakes up the next morning, Sherlock is almost completely splayed across him. He laughs and pokes Sherlock's face and asks, "Coffee?"

Sherlock groans and opens one eye and blinks at him sleepily. He pats John's face with one hand, pokes his fingers on his lips and splays them over his eyelids. Eventually, he says, "Milk, two sugars."

"As if I didn't already know that," John replies with a laugh, then slides out of bed. Sherlock's already rolled over and gone back to sleep by the time he's pulled his trousers on.

* * *

"Where do you go, when you shut yourself in your room every few weeks?"

"Nowhere."

"Sherlock..."

Sherlock ignores him.

* * *

"John."

John, pulling on his jacket by the front door, stops. Its half eleven at night and he hadn't seen Sherlock sitting there in the dark. He flicks the light on and Sherlock instantly cringes away.

"Turn it off!" he bellows, catching John by surprise. He doesn't relax even when the lights are dimmed once more.

"You'll ruin your eyes sitting in the dark like that," John says lightly.

Sherlock doesn't reply for a long time, but he looks at John and sees a man that's about to leave him again. His best trousers on and a shirt that he washed by hand, it's another step towards a woman that might actually succeed in tearing John away forever.

"Don't go," Sherlock says.

John looks at him in confusion, then in mild irritation. "Sherlock, I'm not your plaything. You can't just make me stay and go as you please."

Sherlock's chest heaves and it burns and he's afraid, so very afraid. So he forces himself to sit up. "Please," he gasps. "I'll tell you where I go," he says, even quieter.

John looks at him, surprised. Something in his stare shows he understands exactly what Sherlock's talking about, and exactly how much this means. Slowly, without any other words, John closes the door, hangs his jacket up, and sits across from him.

Sherlock tells him.

* * *

It was a simply, two day case of kidnapping mixed in with a little fraud. Nothing big. nothing threatening - but the perpetrator certainly hadn't seen it that way.

The blade sails down into John's leg and John screams.

Sherlock screams, too, but it's so quiet that no one else hears it. Not Lestrade, who tackles the man the second his attention is elsewhere, and certainly not Sally, who clicks the handcuffs tight around his wrists.

Not even John hears him, not when he has Sherlock's shirt pressed to his leg, trying desperately to stem the flow of blood.

Eventually, the wail of the ambulance filters into perception, and Sherlock allows it to fill his head so completely that any and everything else is blocked out.

He stops screaming.

John goes to A&E to do battle with a scalpel and Sherlock goes home and rolls onto his side and clutches his leg and pretends it doesn't hurt.

When John gets home two days later, Sherlock hasn't slept a wink. Instead he sweeps up to John, reaches past him to slam the door shut, takes his face in his hands, and kisses him.

"Oh."

John's hands reach up to take Sherlock's, and he presses his thumbs into each palm. _"Oh,"_ he says again, then looks up and smiles brilliantly. Then he kisses Sherlock back.

Sherlock feels joy swell up inside his chest and it takes him over and so he takes John's hands in his and dances him around the room.

* * *

"I'm an empath, John."

"A what?"

Sherlock rolls his eyes. "Don't pretend you don't know. I can psychically tune in to the emotional experiences of any person, place, or animal. But it's far too overwhelming, completely involuntary, and much too distracting. So I... turn it off."

John's eyebrows go up. "You... turn it off. I didn't know it could be 'turned off'."

"Normally, it can't. It took me years to develop the skill, and even then it is quite flawed. A more accurate description would be to say that I put the intruding emotions on hold for as long as I possibly can, so I can work to my optimum, and then I deal with every emotion in quick succession afterwards." Sherlock waves his hands in vague motions around him. "This usually takes a day, give or take a few hours. The second day is mainly reserved for resting."

John nods slowly. "So with you, it's..." he trails off, glancing at Sherlock expectantly.

Sherlock looks away and lets the silence hang in the air for a few seconds more. It's bland, tastes of nothing and for that, Sherlock is glad. "It's everything or nothing. There is no middle ground."

John takes a few seconds to let that sink in, then he laughs. "So that's why you're an ornery bastard half the time, huh?"

Just for a second, Sherlock looks like he's been slapped in the face. The expression falls off as John continues to laugh and eventually, Sherlock laughs with him.

* * *

James Moriarty tastes of nothing but rage and lust and a twisted sense of satisfaction. It all hits Sherlock in one concentrated blast that constricts his chest and disgusts him so entirely.

_(It fascinates him so entirely)._

But it's John who's there and John who walks out and he knows the moment he sees him that John is not James Moriarty. John's heart flutters as he stands, repeating silver words that shimmer with threats, and he doesn't feel like a man that wants to kill.

He feels like a man who loves far too much and has too many bombs strapped to his chest.

Five red laser sights later and Sherlock's almost vibrating from the effort of having to quash everything down so much. And John, bless him, is trying his best not to feel anything at all, but even a soldier can't hide completely.

Everything defuses at the ring of Jim's phone. The string of tensions held taut snaps against Sherlock's chest so hard that he tastes blood in the corner of his mouth.

The second James Moriarty leaves, Sherlock throws the gun away and his hands are all over John. John's face, John's chest, John's arms-

John laughs and tries to bat him away. "Sherlock, at least let me get up."

But then he can't, because Sherlock has forced himself into John's space so entirely and he's kissing him hard enough to have all of his attention. John pulls him down into his lap and wraps his arms around Sherlock's body and kisses him back just as hard.

They don't get back home for hours, and when they finally do, they have sex in the living room. Sherlock falls apart in John's arms and when he pieces himself back together again, he has bits of John stuck in his bones.

* * *

During one of Sherlock's retreats, John lends him his old copy of Rush Hour to help make the hours more manageable. He budges the door open just enough to slip it through the crack, and it works as a distraction until Sherlock gets stuck on one of the last Expert puzzles.

Sherlock throws the puzzle against his wall and starts tramping around in his room. An hour later and the noises have stopped, but John starts finding pieces squirelled away in his belongings. One particularly memorable puzzle card is torn up and shoved into his toothpaste.

Not a day later and all the pieces are gone again.

Sherlock solves it a few hours later. He makes this apparent by sneaking into John's room, taping the puzzle pieces to the wall, and painting the solution in big, bright red letters underneath it.

The puzzle stays on John's wall for a whole week until Sherlock gets sick of John ignoring him because of it.

He takes it down and paints over the red letters.

John stares at his wall, disbelieving, for maybe a whole minute before tramping down and tiredly shaking his head in Sherlock's direction.

"But I painted over it!"

"In a green so bright I get headaches just looking at it," John points out.

Sherlock scoffs. "No, you don't. I can tell from here-"

"Not the point," John cuts across him.

Sherlock sulks, but John remains steadfast until they come to a compromise. John goes out and buys test pottles of paint that don't offend his eyes and they both spend an evening painting John's wall in varying shades of hideous brown. Half of the paint somehow ends up in Sherlock's hair and John's wall has about six shades of colour splashed on it by the end of it, but it hardly matters by then.

Sherlock abandons him the second they're done and throws himself back on the couch, paint and all. He's there for maybe a minute before John pulls him off and shoves him into the bathroom. Sherlock twists his arm around John's wrist and pulls him inside as well.

John lets him, but still splutters and looks away when Sherlock runs the bath and strips off.

Sherlock, of course, laughs. "Really, John? You've seen me in much more compromising positions than this one. I hardly think your innocence needs much protection at this point."

John almost throws a bottle of shampoo at him. Instead, he awkwardly positions himself next to the tub and runs his hands through Sherlock's hair, soaking it then putting the shampoo through it. He diligently washes Sherlock's hair, brushing his fingers along his scalp.

Sherlock hums and shuts his eyes and sinks low into the bath until bubbles touch his skin. John hums along with him despite not knowing the tune, and it's the most relaxed either of them have been in months.

It's quiet and calm and peaceful and for once, emotions aren't threatening to spill over into Sherlock's head.

* * *

And end is coming. Sherlock can taste it in the dust grey-blue that paints the morning. An imminent end that scares him a lot more than he's willing to admit, that frightens him all the more when he can't even tell how far away it is.

It starts with a text. One of maybe a hundred that he receives every day, but this one is different because it is handed to him by a John whose face is pinched tight and is signed _JM_ with a kiss.

He stands. Drops his phone on the table. Then he retreats to his room and tips his heart out over his bed. He throws out all the excess, useless junk out of the window where it dissolves into the streets. He replaces it all with iron bands, steeling himself for the answer to the final problem.

He dresses himself in his best suit and prepares for a dance. It's a dance not of lovers but of blood, but Sherlock won't be the only one damaged by every solitary beat of the drum. That's a promise.

* * *

John catches him staring out the window early one morning, when the streetlights do nothing but make more shadows. He's holding his violin in one hand, but the bow has dropped to the floor. John takes one look at it and frowns.

"Sherlock?"

And Sherlock whirls on him, frighteningly manic. He throws the violin to one side _(throws!)_ and all but tackles John to the floor. His hands paw over John's chest, tearing off his shirt and mapping the skin that hides underneath. He leans down to lick a stripe over John's throat, and all he tastes is sand. Sandy Afghanistan, mixed with blood both unfamiliar (most likely an army mate) and- Sherlock's own.

John had been dreaming of death. But he's suffered through reruns of the deaths of soldiers, of old army mates, almost every night since coming home from Afghanistan, and none of those dreams have shaken him like this one has.

That night, John dreamed of Sherlock's death, and the startling realisation of that scares them both.

John runs a thumb along Sherlock's cheek in slow wonder. "Sherlock-"

"Don't," Sherlock cuts him off, then stops him speaking altogether with a kiss.

"Don't speak," he says, sliding John's hand underneath his shirt. "Don't think," he says, grinding their hips together. "Don't dream," he says, leaning up and pulling John's trousers off almost desperately.

He bends back down to kiss the tip of John's nose as John's own hands grip his waist tight. "Most of all, don't dream me dead," he whispers against John's lip.

"Okay," John whispers back, touching as much of Sherlock as he can reach. His fingers take paths they've long since memorised, and they fall together once more.

The proof of their life lies in a little death to the tune of a blue dawn.

* * *

Moriarty's hand closes around his own and he feels it, just for that second. Success. Violent success so destructive that-

_Oh, fuck._

That Sherlock barely manages to move away fast enough before James Moriarty shoots himself in the head.

It should shock him, the blood pooling around his head like some kind of crooked halo he'd snapped across his knee. It should shake his bones and scream in his ear but instead, there's nothing.

And that's almost terrifying. Instead, he absently notes it down then shoves it to the back of his mind. There are more important things to be doing.

Like dying.

He takes out his phone. Calls John. Just because he has to die, doesn't mean he has to do it alone.

"It's a trick. It's just a magic trick."

Besides - _keep your eyes fixed on me!_ \- there's always time for one last clue.

* * *

Sherlock falls. His pulse stops and his breathing grinds to a halt and he has blood streaked through his hair, but he lives.

John falls. His pulse speeds up as he tries to catch up with what's happened, tries to track the precise moment when his flatmate/bestfriend/lover decided to throw himself off a building, but he lives. No bullet tears through him, nothing pierces his skin. John Watson breathes enough for both of them.

"Oh, god, no."

The three words are thunderclaps that echo through him, the reverberations of lightning strikes of pure white that pierce and stab and dig right in to settle under his skin. The gold and grey and brown rips itself apart in anguish, but it still sparks, ever so slightly, and that's what matters.

Afterwards, he curls up on Molly's couch and shuts down for three days. He rampages for two hours after, breaking all of Molly's china, throwing cutlery across the room only to stand on it a minute later, takes an umbrella in hand and spears it through the wall over and over again.

When Molly comes home, Sherlock's curled up on the carpet, spots of blood over his feet and hands, and he's shivering.

She gasps, then collects herself together and quietly goes about patching him back up. She pointedly ignores the mess.

His funeral is held the week afterwards. Sherlock watches it from afar, watches John and Mrs. Hudson and

Lestrade and even Sally and Anderson pay their respects. Molly is there as well, looking very uncomfortable next to a weeping crowd.

Mrs. Hudson tries to say a few words, but they end up being somewhat unintelligible, so she shuffles away again. Lestrade throws in praise disguised as insults that goes on for a good ten minutes.

John doesn't say anything. He gets sympathetic looks and pats on the back and "I'm here for you, mate," but he doesn't say anything. Not until everyone else leaves.

It's the first time Sherlock feels anything like it - his heart beating in time to someone else's. But it's doing it now, and it hurts and it's wonderful and all he wants is for John to turn around, to see him, to say something, anything-

"One more miracle, Sherlock. For me."

He doesn't.

Sherlock leaves.

* * *

The weeks that follow have Sherlock adapting to the weight of a gun in his hands, resting on his shoulders, weighted along his arm. He learns to take sight and shoot without a moment's hesitation, learns to roll with the recoil and avoid injuring himself in the meantime.

The first time he puts a gun to anyone's head, the explosion that follows is more than blood and brain. He feels a rush of emotions so strong that they break through his barriers, tear through him and make him scream.

He spends that night curled up as small as possible, hands pressed to his forehead. He doesn't sleep.

Each successive kill blunts him a little more, tears his heart a little more, solidifies him a little more. The only thing that stops him from floating off, from sinking and forgetting who he is, is the set of dog tags pressed tight against his chest.

* * *

Two months later, and John is standing on the roof of St. Bart's Hospital, staring over the edge, picking out exactly where and how Sherlock hit the pavement. He's done this every week, sat in this position and wondered how, exactly, he could have stopped it.

He's gone through the scenario one hundred and twelve times, but all he's figured out is one hundred and twelve ways he let Sherlock slip through his fingers.

"John?"

Molly's voice is timid, but the hand on his arm is warm, comforting. She smiles when he looks up, but it's sad, worried. It makes John want to scream, just a little, to tell her that he doesn't need her pity or her remorse or her commiseration. Most of all, it makes John feel tired.

"Molly," he acknowledges.

She doesn't really say anything else, but she stays with him for a long while, sitting on the ground next to his feet and staring up at the sky.

"Don't go," she says eventually.

John laughs, but it's hollow and it scares even him. "I'm not going anywhere."

They stop letting him up to the roof of St. Bart's Hospital.

* * *

Two months later, and Sherlock is in Switzerland. Rumours of Moriarty's men float through the air, alongside a stench of fear and oppression and an apathy so strong it sticks to his bones.

His whole being has shifted and he's learned to reinforce himself so completely that everything slides off him.

He keeps his head focussed and forgets everything else.

He forgets John, just for a second, because every thought of him is distracting, therefore every thought of him is lethal.

* * *

The next time he sees Mycroft, John punches him in the face.

Twice.

* * *

The next time he sees Mycroft, Sherlock notices the discolouration in his cheek and eye with a laugh. "Finally.

I've been dying to do that for years."

"Looks like you're getting on well, then," Mycroft replies, his lips pursed. He has his umbrella in one hand and his phone in the other, and he watches Sherlock closely. "Can't say the same for your lovely army doctor."

Sherlock doesn't react, doesn't change his expression at all. "He's better off without me."

Mycroft lets out a laugh that surprises them both. "If you believe that, you're a fool."

Sherlock already knows that. His heart still beats synchronised with John's, and every now and then he feels it flutter in doubt. When that happens, the dog tags that press against his chest burn his skin. They burn more with every passing second, and any day now he's sure they'll end up sinking into his bones.

But that's - _not now/not relevant/not important_ \- so Sherlock just glares at him and stretches out his hand.

Mycroft sighs heavily, takes a USB stick out of his pocket, and hands it over. "Encrypted, of course, but I trust it will pose no difficulties for you."

"Thank you," Sherlock says, pocketing it.

Mycroft laughs again, but this time it's tinged with mauve bitterness. "I'm hardly doing this for your sake."

He doesn't offer any explanation, but Sherlock understands.

At least, he thinks he does.

* * *

In the quiet limits of the morning, when John is unable to stop himself shaking, he gets out of bed and makes himself a cup of tea. Then he takes out his handgun, sits at the table, and sets the two side by side.

He stares at them for a long time, two sides to the army doctor he used to be. Now he doesn't feel like either of them. He picks up a tea and takes a sip, but so much time has passed that it's gone cold. He drinks it all anyway.

Then he pickes up the gun and goes for a walk. He goes down by the Thames and thinks about following Sherlock, about jumping into the water and letting it carry him away, about being unable to keep any job for longer than two weeks and still having nightmares and still loving Sherlock-

The gun finds a home in the water.

* * *

The bullet that lodges itself into the side of Charles [REDACTED]'s head is satisfying beyond words. The rush of adrenaline that runs up Sherlock's spine should be familiar by now, should be old news, but this is different.

If the information Mycroft handed him was right, there was only one more left.

One more in London.

(One more far too close to John).

Sherlock scrunches himself over and manages to take nearly a foot off his height. Then he boards a plane and flies back to England.

* * *

Lestrade was supposed to be the first one he saw. Sitting outside of the Yard, nursing a hot drink of some kind, it doesn't exactly turn out that way.

"I'm hallucinating."

Sherlock turns, and there is Sally. Even after being absent for a year and a half, she is a familiar setting in a London that's moved on without him.

"Sally."

She lifts her hand and cuts him off. "No, I'm hallucinating, because even if you managed to cheat death somehow, you wouldn't be sitting out here like some dead puppy that's forgotten the way home."

"If you're worried that I'm here to see you, don't be," Sherlock bites out. "I feel no ill will towards you."

Sally almost laughs. "What, you don't blame me for having a mind weak enough to be suckered into his contorted plan? Yeah, you'd best not, since it was your fault for being such a gigantic arse in the first place."

Sherlock doesn't laugh, and the grin that adorned Sally's face eventually slides off. "I'd expected you to be a lot... angrier," he admits.

"Are you kidding me? This is a goddamn blessing, if you ask me. You have no idea how annoying it is to have John trailing along to crime scenes, moping after you and just generally making us all feel shit," Sally says with a laugh. "'Course, I'm damn upset that you're still sitting where I can see you. I swear, if you're still there when I finish counting to five, I'm going to shoot you and drag your corpse to John's feet so he can kick the

crap out of you himself."

Something in Sally's eyes tells hims he is absolutely, completely serious. She's barely passed a count of one before he's up and off, running into the night.

"Welcome back, freak!" she yells after him as he runs.

* * *

That's it, John thinks to himself as he opens the door to the ground floor of 221B Baker Street. He's not just gone delusional, he's taken a flying leap off a high diving board, done a two and a half somersault, then belly-flopped into the deep end.

Because boy, hearing haunting violin music from the upper floor of 221B is a whole new level of madness, even for John.

He closes the door behind him and Mrs. Hudson rushes out to meet him, and it becomes starkly apparent that madness is contagious, if the lingering remains of tear tracks were anything to go by.

She makes a vague hand motion and says, "John, I didn't know what to do, so I just-" Then she gives up entirely and waves him up the steps.

John frowns, pats her on the arm, then starts up the steps. _One out of seventeen, one after another, John,_ concentrate on that and not on the spark of hope that threatens to burn the bones in your chest.

But despite everything, despite his solid core of logic telling him that _you saw him fall you saw him bleed you_ _saw him die, goddamnit!_ , there he is. Playing his violin exactly like he had 18 months ago, with his head tilted forward ever so slightly and his body turned diagonally towards John's chair and his eyes shut as though he's afraid to face the music he's playing.

Sherlock Holmes plays the violin like he'd been there the whole time, playing a ridiculous game of hide and seek that no one else knew the rules to.

John steps over the threshold and Sherlock's piece ends abruptly, yet he still manages to make the last note cut off smoothly as though it had been written that way. It's so unlike the catty yowls John is used to hearing ( _was_ used to hearing?) that, just for a second, it throws him off.

But then Sherlock's eyes slide open to meet his and even though he's halfway across the room, John recognises the grey-blue-green that make him up.

The silence that follows holds him in stasis, rings in his ears and plays pretend that a year and a half spent blindly shouting at the world wasn't for nothing after all.

"John."

And it shatters with one syllable. John sucks in a staggered breath and holds it. He holds it for as long as possible, and when he learns to breathe out again, he does it with a manic laugh.

John doesn't reach his armchair, doesn't even try. He just sinks to the floor where he stands, hunches his shoulders forward, and laughs.

He laughs and laughs and laughs and when Sherlock's hand touches his shoulder, they turn into wretched sobs that are pulled from some place deep in his gut and throw fire through his whole body.

Sherlock sinks to the ground in front of him and his hands move frantically over his face, his shoulders, his chest, almost as if cataloguing everything that's changed in the last 18 months. The places where their skin touches hurt the most, like applying salve to a gaping wound.

John reaches up and grabs Sherlock's exploring hands, pulling them down into his lap, rooting them both into the situation. Then he leans forward until their foreheads are touching, looks into Sherlock's eyes and asks, "Why?"

It's a loaded question full of blanks, and John may as well have passed Sherlock a gun and asked him to shoot him in the head.

With his finger on the trigger, Sherlock takes John's hand and slides it under his shirt to rest over his heart. Then he positions his other hand over John's own heart.

"Sherlock, what-"

"Shh," he says, cutting John off. "Can you feel it?" he adds in barely whisper.

Confusion furrows John's eyebrows, but he sits still and he waits. And then, maybe a minute later, understanding dawns on his face. Instead of shooting, Sherlock's chosen to dismantle the gun.

 _Ba-dump, ba-dump,_ "They're synchronised."

Sherlock's grin is the only thing that answers him.

"That's awfully sentimental of you, Sherlock Holmes."

"I needed your help," he says in lieu of replying, avoiding the notion altogether. "And I need it again now."

John laughs again. "What do you need?"

Sherlock tells him, and John listens.

* * *

The gun that presses into his hand feels like his old Browning, so much so that John starts to wonder if Sherlock jumped into the Thames after it. He dismisses the idea almost as soon as it forms, given that there are five reasons against it that come to mind immediately, even if you put aside the fact that it would have been absolutely ridiculous.

Then again, considering that John has been living with ridiculous for the past four years, he almost wouldn't be surprised. The fact that a dead man walking has just told him he feared for his life and handed him a gun was just another thing to add to the pile.

Sherlock presses a note into his other hand and starts pushing him out the door. "Yes, alright, give me a second," is all John says in protest, grabbing his jacket on the way out. John frowns as Sherlock closes the door behind him, but doesn't say anything more. He just tucks the gun into his waistband then opens the note.

It doesn't take him long to memorise the few lines of text and the diagram underneath. When he's done, he shreds it into tiny pieces and dumps them into three separate rubbish bins. Then he pulls his jacket up against the wind and walks.

* * *

John watches him assemble the airgun, piece by loving piece. The process seems to take hours, and each sweep of the hand is calculated in a way that no one else would.

It's when he steadies the gun against the windowsill and takes careful aim that John steps out from his corner.

He knows the location of every creaky floorboard, every nail sticking out, every dodgy step, because they were meticulously pointed out on a tiny scrap of paper.

And, if he's completely honest, he knows that's the only reason he manages to get close enough to press the end of his gun to the back of Sebastian Moran's head.

John can see the grin on his face, even with his eye pressed to the sight. "Hello, John Watson," he says.

"Goodbye, Sebastian Moran," John replies.

Then he shoots.

* * *

Sherlock bursts through the door three minutes later and his eyes immediately focus on the pretty dead body adorning the floor. The blood has seeped outwards and started to pool at John's feet, but he's made no move to either clean it off or relocate.

"You shot him," Sherlock says, incredulous. The he purses his lip. "You shot him _twice_."

John's gaze also flicks towards the body from where he's leaning against the wall. "Yeah, about that. I do seem to recall pulling the trigger twice. It just hadn't occurred to me that it would discharge two bullets. Funny how life turns out sometimes, isn't it?" John says, a crooked smile on his face.

Sherlock frowns. "John, I had a plan! This," he motions to Sebastian's body, "Was not part of the plan."

"It was a dumb plan. I didn't like your plan. So I made a new one, and I have to say that so far, I'm liking my plan a lot better than yours," John retorts.

"But-"

John pushes himself off the wall and takes three long strides over to where Sherlock is standing. Then punches him in the face.

Sherlock falls with a lot less grace than the last time John punched him; all long, flailing limbs getting in the way of each other. He gets up immediately afterwards and opens his mouth to say something, but John hasn't finished speaking yet.

"If you thought, for even one second, that I was going to let you put yourself in line of a bullet, then you must be a bigger idiot than I took you for," John bites out.

Sherlock frowns and massages his cheek. "It was a good plan! He never would have hit me in the first place, he-"

John silences him by putting up a hand. "We're finished having this conversation. You have said your part, I have disagreed with it, and we have both come to the realisation that arguing it doesn't matter now that he's dead on the ground anyway. Right, Sherlock?" John asks, fixing him with a pointed glare.

Sherlock scowls, but the decision is taken from him when they hear rather loud, rather clumsy footsteps coming towards them. John stands up straight, ready to leave, but Sherlock shakes his head. "Don't bother running; it's Lestrade."

"How do you know that, exactly? It could be anyone!"

Sherlock lets out a long-suffering sigh. "I know from his gait, walking speed and the ungainly loud breathing exactly who it is." Then he pulls out his phone and taps through it. "I also sent him a text before I came."

Lestrade chooses that moment to appear in the doorway, eyes pinched and drawn, headache obvious. "Sherlock, I swear to god, you may have some kind of deal with Death or whatever, I don't care, but if you have anything to do with- what the hell happened here?" He exclaims, only just noticing the body adorning the floor.

Sherlock barely spares it a glance. "He tripped and fell into his own bullets."

The look Lestrade gives him borders on weary dismay. "Tripped backwards, did he? Or did nature decide to throw us a curveball and let him shoot himself in the back of his own head?"

John stifles a giggle. "Something like that, Inspector."

Understanding dawns on Lestrade's face, and he groans. "I'm not going to wake up tomorrow morning with your brother sitting next to my bed again, am I?"

Sherlock wrinkles his face up in disgust. "What you and my brother do in your spare time is no business of mine."

It takes a second for that comment to sink in, and when it does, Lestrade's face turns a healthy shade of red. "Not like that, you arse!"

Sherlock nods, and to anyone else it might be labelled 'understanding', but John recognises it as yet another of Sherlock's typical condescending motions. "And that's why you've rushed here smelling distinctly of my brother's cologne. Nice to see you finally rid yourself of your wife. Even if she did knick off with half of your belongings," he adds after giving Lestrade another look-over.

"I see you've not gained any tact while you were gone," Lestrade grumbles.

Sherlock throws him a grin. "Did you really expect any different, Lestrade? Now be off with you."

"Oh, I see. So you brought me here to berate me a bit and then shoo me out. Back to normal then, is it?"

John gives him an apologetic grin. "More or less, yeah."

* * *

That night, Sherlock tries to follow John into his room. When he reaches the door, John turns and stops Sherlock from going in with his arm.

"But it's my room!" Sherlock protests, waving his arms towards it as though proving his point.

John gives him a pointed look. "You died, remember? They're both my rooms."

Sherlock huffs, but doesn't press the point. Instead he tramps up the stairs as loudly as possible, pulls the blanket off the bed and hauls it back down the stairs. Then he throws himself on the couch and curls himself up as much as he can.

He even manages a few hours sleep, before waking with a jolt and falling off the couch. He doesn't roll very far, because John is blocking his way.

"You're an idiot," John says, looking down at him with disdain.

"I know," Sherlock replies with a frown.

"I hate you."

"I _know_."

John holds his hand out. "Come on, you."

Sherlock grins brilliantly at him. "Am I forgiven now?"

John rolls his eyes, but he has a secret little smile on his face. "Your grovelling could use a little work."

Sherlock takes him by the hand and lets himself be led to the bedroom, where grey-gold brown meets green-blue-grey and completes the circuit.

**Author's Note:**

> On the off chance anyone was wondering, Sherlock's "Shove all the planets in the universe..." line is from Firefly!


End file.
